Scene-stealer Rob Corddry recalls South Shore days

Monday

Mar 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMMar 29, 2010 at 6:09 PM

Weymouth native Rob Corddry found fame as a fake news correspondent on “The Daily Show.” Since he left that post four years ago, Corddry’s stock continues to rise as he steals nearly every movie he’s ever had a role in, including “Hot Tub Time Machine,” which opened Friday.

Dana Barbuto

Weymouth native Rob Corddry found fame as a fake news correspondent on “The Daily Show.” Since he left that post four years ago, Corddry’s stock continues to rise as he steals nearly every movie he’s ever had a role in, including “Hot Tub Time Machine,” which opened Friday.

His success comes as no surprise to the people who knew him, as they put it, “when he still had a full head of jet-black hair.”

“It was gorgeous,” Corddry, 39, said of the mullet he sported in the ’80s. “My dad is completely bald and he would see me carefully combing it in the bathroom mirror. ‘Enjoy it,’ he used to say to me.”

Corddry, a 1989 graduate of Weymouth North High School, was president of the Drama Club and a member of the student council and the Gifted and Talented Club. His nickname was Cords, according to his yearbook entry.

Jan Smith, drama teacher for more than 30 years in Weymouth, remembers the first time she saw Corddry.

“He walked on my stage and I thought he was very good-looking. I knew from the moment I saw him he was my Albert (the lead role) in ‘Bye, Bye, Birdie,’” Smith gushes. “He had a very commanding stage presence. He had such a sarcastic sense of humor. You can see there is a monkey in there.”

Smith pauses, takes a breath and continues. “Then I later scolded him. ‘You’re a senior and I only have you for one year.’”

Aside from the fame and roles in pictures such as “What Happens in Vegas,” with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, and “The Heartbreak Kid,” with Ben Stiller, Corddry said he still feels a close connection to the South Shore.

“I’m ridiculously proud of being from there,” said Corddry, a former Ledger delivery boy.

Corddry arranged for a private screening of “Hot Tub Time Machine” last Wednesday night at the Patriot Cinemas at the Hingham shipyard. He was unable to attend, but 200 of his family and friends, including Smith, did.

In the R-rated comedy, Corddry plays Lou, a crass party animal who is transported back with a group of guys to 1986 via a magical hot tub. During that fateful scene, Corddry’s rear-end is fully exposed – twice.

“I am hoping Jan (Smith) will be proud. That a** studied with (American theater guru) Stanford Meisner. That a** went through years of classical theater training. I’m proud of its work,” says Corddry, quick to laugh at himself.

Later, Corddry says baring his derriere seemed like a good idea at the time.

“I look like an 80-year-old man,” Corddry says. “Jan Smith was the one that told me, ‘When in doubt, whip your a** out.’”

Before he took to the high school stage, Corddry was the de facto entertainer of Boy Scouts Troop 19 in Weymouth.

“I think Rob’s acting career started in Scouts. There’s no doubt about it,” said John Cox, one of Corddry’s scouting mates and a longtime friend. “He’d do the most hysterical skits around the campfire during campouts. He’d dress up and get so into it. That was his launching pad. The whole place would go crazy. He owned the stage.”

Corddry earned his Eagle Scout badge in 1988 after completing a beautification project at the South Weymouth reservoir. “I put benches down, which I believe are still there,” he says.

Steve Mangone, the assistant scoutmaster for Troop 19, remembers Corddry as a “ladies man with nice jet black hair that was always combed with an almost Elvis pouffe in the front.”

As Mangone puts it: “When Rob was in junior high he always he had his hair combed to the side. He was a little studly. He dressed in junior high to impress the girls.”

Corddry wisecracks: “I’ve never agreed with Steve Mangone until right now – no, that was sarcasm. ... Hey, I at least tried.”

Corddry graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1993 with an English degree. He moved to New York to pursue theater. Now living in Los Angeles, he’s been married for eight years and has two daughters, 3 years old and 15 months.

His younger brother, Nathan Corddry (“The Invention of Lying”), is also a successful actor on stage and screen. Rob Corddry said the two have a film project together that’s in development and are working on a Web series called “The Corddry Brothers.”

He just finished the second season of the show “Children’s Hospital,” which he also wrote, directed and produced. The first season, which ran on the Internet, will be premiering on Adult Swim in July. His next film is “The Winning Season” with Sam Rockwell.

Though he’s been away from the area for a while and he doesn’t get back to the South Shore often enough, Corddry still considers Weymouth home. He misses Frank’s Pizza and That’s Italian, Too – “The best Italian sub in the world.”

In fact, he’d rather be “homeless in my car” than live on the North Shore.

“I would park that car somewhere nice on the South Shore,” Corddry said.

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